A difficult one.

[NoGoodAtCleaning]

Ok so this is a MIL thread but not a bashing one. And I am looking for genuine answers as to if she's being awkward or I'm being over senstive.

MIL is all about her, and she expects us to take DS (8 mo) to her but she won't come and see him. We begged her to come to ours on xmas day so she can see his prezzies, we can give her her prezzies, and I'm going to make them bacon butties and croissants and things. She wanted us to meet her in the pub with all DP's family, but we don't take DS to pubs and we are going to my mum's for lunch.

Anyway, she was really annoyed and said she wouldn't come. DP asked her a lot of times and in the end she agreed, begrudgingly.

He explained that although DS is a baby and doesn't know his arse from his elbow yet, we want to start our xmases as we mean to go on so that everyone gets the jist. She expected us to take DS (and some of his prezzies) to hers first thing xmas morning so that he could open his prezzies with her, and she could give him the present she had bought him. We want to spend our 1st xmas morning as a family in our new home, which is practically santas grotto, while DS opens all of his prezzies.

My family have given us DS's prezzies, with all the tags marked 'love from Santa', so that he's got them, from Santa, on xmas morning.

We explained this to DP's family and asked them to do the same. Most of his family were happy to do so. However, SIL has refused and said she will give him his prezzie on xmas day, in the pub, which we are not going to.

MIL threw a paddy but agreed. She rang and asked us to go to hers tonight so we went over and she had some prezzies for the baby. DP said something about them being from Santa and she said 'no, they're from me. I bought them. The tag says they're from me, and it'll say they're from me every year, same as it does for every other child. I paid for the presents so he'll know they're from me.'

SIL said 'well he isn't having my present until xmas day' and MIL said 'that's what I should have done' and glared at me. She also told us we have to wait until DP has gone to pick her up(she couldn't possibly drive over, get a taxi, or walk on xmas day- she has a car) before DS opens his presents.

She's been really horrible.

She had DS today and we left him there a few hours because she's always moaning we don't let her have him enough and when we arrived she kept calling us 'strangers' over and over again as we hadn't gone earlier to pick the baby up.

The other things is that she's bought SIL a games console for xmas, and loads of other presents, and she's bought SIL's boyfriend lots of presents. Then she's bought DP lots of presents and the same games console as SIL but she's not got me any presents as she said the games console is between DP and I. Yet I spent lots on her, and really thought the presents out as she's high maintenance.

Does she not like me or am I being oversensitive?

I've got to admit, if I think of other details, I may add them as I go along, but I think this is the lot. I know everyone hates a drip feeder, but I forget things!

Dear nogood

Read first few replies to OP not all

I think it is ok to want to have your own traditions but I think you should have ones that dont depend on other people in any way. As your DS becomes a toddler and is more aware there is loads more you can do in the run up to xmas. Some of our traditions are quite simple and we have neing doing them before our DS came along:

1. Tree up with sherry n mince pies and its the first time we play xmas music

2. We sit and plan our christmas calander

3. We go to an xmas market

4. We do one special thing just for DS

5. Now he can 'make' decorations

6. DP likes to watch certain films in run up and on xmas eve

There needs to be some give here but learn to plan stuff at key holidays that are JUST YOURS

I also think people are being harsg to Nogood. She's accepted that she wasn't in the right and is trying to do something about it. However, I would say that this response:

"Maybe I'll do what Turneiphead said. One from us, and then ask other people to limit their presents to one, so that they get to give DS a well thought out present, but Santa brings the most so he is still special and magical."

although showing willingness to compromise, still contains the essential problem here - wanting to stage manage other people into creating a specific christmas for your child. You can ask of course, but given their attitude, they'll probably not oblige and will most likely not be limited by what you want to happen. And their gift will be as well thought out as they choose it to be, despite what you plan for. So as well as compromising, I guess the thing is just to focus on your own gifts and go with the flow as far as others are concerned. That's what families are all about and ultimately it's them, not Santa, who make christmas special and magical and also crazy and infuriating.

Oh bless you. The lovely thing about having one 8-month-old child is that you can go to the pub and have a lovely long pub lunch while the baby gets passed around all the relatives.

When you have 3 children and you have to pay for a meal for each of them that they won't eat, and spend the whole meal getting up and down taking them to the toilet or stopping them from screaming and running around, or taking it in turns with dh to stand out in the cold pub play-garden with them - you're going to look back on this time and wish you hadn't wasted it.

And, absolutely don't "start as you mean to go on". That way you end up with set-in-stone traditions, and people getting very upset when you break them. Instead, do something randomly different every year. It is not obligatory to see every family member every Christmas, really it isn't.

I have fond memories of dd's first christmas - she was 7mo. She slept for a lot of the day, as they do. And spend the rest of it on the floor under a pile of wrapping paper, while we sat comfortably around with the mulled wine. Lovely.

NoGood, I think you've treated a little harshly here.
I agree with Custy, your MIL obviously has ishoos with you.

You are being a tad PFB,(you will laugh at this in the future) your DS is 8mths and whilst I commend your attempt at having/keeping family traditions you are now part of 2 families and DP's family obviously have their own traditions.

So, presents, leave them to put whatever they like on tags (it will be a good few years before your DS will even know anyway!).

YANBU re the pub, it is your baby's first christmas and if they can't make an effort to come round then sod em (it sounds like you had planned it to be a nice event).
Do as Custy said and just stop interacting with your MIL, let your DP do it, she sounds high maintenance and selfish.
I hope you have a lovely Christmas

The idea that presents should all be from Santa seems pretty unreasonable.

I think also the subsequent post:
"Maybe I'll do what Turneiphead said. One from us, and then ask other people to limit their presents to one, so that they get to give DS a well thought out present, but Santa brings the most so he is still special and magical."

Is a little odd - why does Santa have to bring the most to make him be special? It all seems a bit materialistic to me.

'At the birth of our son, I sent a letter requesting them not to innundate us with junk. I made a detailed list of things they could easily make or ideas about how to spend time with the new child or ways to contribute to the baby's well-being. (Write down a favourite story from childhood, burn a cd of favourite songs, set up an educational account, put together a family photo album with captions, take him to the zoo. At five, he has a decent investment portfolio and never feels as if his family doesn't care for him. My mother recently said, "He comes over and all he wants to do is play and talk with me." I said, "He's smart. He wants what is most precious to you - your time." That had her looking perplexed!'

Poetmum, sorry but you sound insufferable and in need of a quick going over in an alley.

You can tell people not to buy your child crap. (I have never let people bring presents to my kids' birthday parties) You can't however tell them what else they should do with their money.

Oh Good Lord Poetmum. What moondog said.

It's staggeringly smug isn't it?

We had loads of aunts & uncles and at Xmas were inundated with selection boxes / cheap plastic tat in all shapes and sizes, and one "proper" present - and it wasn't unknown for that to be handmade.

And it was fantastic!

PS if anyone wrote me a letter telling me what I could and couldn't buy, with the merest suggestion of investment portfolios, I would throw it in the bin, and buy the most (age appropriate) annoying present I could find

Sorry, but surely Xmas is supposed to be family and fun and food? We were skint when I was a child. I appreciated what I was given and have many happy memories of the house packed to the rafters with drunken relatives. Sadly a lot are no longer with us, and dd's Xmas will not be quite the same.

Oh! Moondog I would have love to tell people not to bring presents but their time. It wouldn't work in my family they would think I was weird. and buy the most annoying present they could find (it has happened) Moondog, Do you live and have family from one of those really trendy places such as Camden or Islington? Where everything is really PC? but they get right up your nose. Do you only have wooden, fair trade, educational, made by a co-op in Bali?

nogood - I understand you want to start as you mean to carry on and this is a good idea. In our house Santa does the stocking and everyone helps him out with presents so ds knows who got what and who to thank.
I would want my nephew and when the time comes my gc's to know what I got them and to get a nice big thank you.
I have felt just like you regarding Christmas presents from in-laws. My mil gave me a very odd pair of earrings last year and I know she spent more on sil - I was also flamed for finding this upsetting. It is not the present it is the feeling that you are being told that you don't qualify for a similar present to the other in laws.
My in laws refuse to give ds gifts to open at home and mil insists that her presents stay at her house which I find . I would not take my ds to a pub on Christmas morning and I would not take him anywhere as I feel that children want to open their presents and play with them without pressure of having to get dressed and go out and be on best behaviour.
My advice - your in laws are out of your circle of control. I would bother wasting your time trying to tell them what to do (save all the bother for when they are trying to feed your dc something odd etc) and do your own thing and enjoy your Christmas.
You are only trying to make sure you, your dp and your dc have a great Christmas.

i think the pub thing is weird

but i think the from santa thing is odd too

in our family we do stockings and presents in the morning from FC and then family come over in the afternoon, or we go there and we give each other family xmas presents from memebers of the family to the children and each other etc. I do think it is a bit much to let people choose and buy presents for your children and then not let them get the credit iykwim. I know he is too young to know now but when ge is older he will, eg my ds has a particular toy my mum got him and whenever he plays with it he says nana got me this nearly a year later and I know she gets a lot of pleasure from that.

She sounds like a pita but i think in this case you might have to call it 50:50. stick to your guns about staying at home but let her give him her presents would be my advice.

Just to pick up on Bink's earlier point - Santa is magical because he is - and it's the way you behave about it that will determine how your dc behave/believe. i've actually got a bit caught out because I think my younger two still believe (and they're now old enough that we're slightly concerned they're going to be teased for it if their friends find out).

We assumed that they wouldn't believe still because they are 12 and 9 and their older sister doesn't (although to be fair to her she was put under pain of no stocking some years ago if she spilt the beans to her sisters and clearly she hasn't). I was in HMV with my 9yo so she could buy a present for her sister and saw the CD that the eldest had asked for from Father Christmas. i picked up and said this and was then asked by 9yo why I was buying it if FC was going to bring it. So I had to put it back and make another trip without her. She needs to learn the truth but not harshly in HMV a few days before Christmas.

What I would do would be to try to do the pub very early and very briefly (find some ds-related reason why he absolutely has to be home by a certain time). It takes a certain amount of time for people to get unpleasantly drunk.

I would leave the labelling on the presents to the donors. Really, you want to encourage happy giving in everyone around your ds- the day may come when you will be desperate for a hand.

And whatever happens, do not get drawn into any power struggle about "my traditions are better than yours". Compromise, compromise, compromise!

My Mum and my Gran were quite negative about each other's traditions and everyday way of doing things, and not only did it affect Mum and Dad's marriage, but it wasn't terribly nice for me to have to deal with. I spent my Christmases trying to keep them both sweet, and it was hard work!

All right, so my Gran was a difficult woman and she was only Mum's MIL, but she was my flesh and blood, as was my Mum; they both belonged to me! I could have done without the hassle. Think about what this will be like for your ds in years to come. Only your MIL- but his Gran!

Moondog! I jsut choked on my coffee reading about the going over in an alley.

As the baby is only 7 months old he isn't going to remember any of it, so you can do something entirely different another time and he is not going to notice.
I am not sure why pub= drunkeness, they serve soft drinks and you could manage to just pop in to be sociable.
I also thought poetmum must be American (someones guess earlier)to be so intense and ernest.I can just about accept that a first time mum might try and tell everyone how to treat her baby but it is a bit worrying that she sees nothing funny about it 5 years later!
I can't stand DCs having to be grateful for the hours you work or the sacrifices you make, you chose to have them, you choose how hard you work and you choose what you spend it on. I have a family member who does that with his DCs and it makes me cringe. Appreciating it and saying thank you is lovely, but not continually be told how lucky they are when they have no control over what you choose to do with your life.

and I doubt his investment portfolio is very healthy these days perhaps he would have been better off with some cheap plastic tat to play with to see him through the lean times .....

I heart Poetmum.

I knew there were some strange people about, but to actually read proof.......well, sorry, but I am stunned. First by the OP, and then even more so by poetmum!!!

altho moondogs comments have made my day.

the pub with your inlaws, for an hour in the morning, cannot be compared to spending time with rowdy drunks.....they surely won't have had the time??? It will be festive and surely start xmas day of in a lovely way (altho I have never done this with mine so I admit I may have an odd idea of what it is really like....).

as for insisting that your inlaws give the glory to santa for the presents they have taken time to choose and pay for.....well, that is sooooo unfair and rude I have to say I am on your MILs side...................why should they? (altho, unless your DS is very G&T, he won;t be able to read the tags, let alone care anyway!)

it is well known anyway that at 8mths old, they need no more than one gift.....in the case of my DD1 (she was 8mths at her first xmas), she would have been thrilled with a box of tissues to shred without mummy shrieking.

and you have shown yourself hypocritical anyway...if you wanted to start off your xmas's as you mean to go on, and insist on being at home for xmas's.................why are you going to your mums for lunch????

and poetmum......I have to say if I ever got a note like you sent out making present requests like that, I would never have bought for you!

I used to think of 'starting as I mean to go on'.

Then you realise that for every tradition that is important to YOU, there is a tradition on your dh's side that is important to THEM.

Why should you wipe out your dh's family traditions just because they are different from what you grew up with?

We never took the ds's in a pub but the inlaws like pubs so now there is no smoking, we will agree to have a meal with them in a pub. Thats a compromise. However when fil says to the ds's 'and if you eat all your food and are good boys, Grandad will take you for a go on the fruit machines' I can assert my parental right to veto activities and suggest that the boys would prefer a go in the pub garden after instead).
My dps family do things always opposite to what I am used to. But thanks to mumsnet and the old dil/mil wars that are raged on here, its helped me to see that its not dp joining MY family, but that our little family is a merger of two very different families. COmpromising with mil over this past 2 years instead of the 'I hate your mother she does things all wrong' stance that I took in my PMT days (Pre Mumsnet Thingy) has actually made my life EASIER because I don't spend the buildup to birthdays and xmas having hissy fits or stressing at anything his mother might mention or do.

GO to the pub for half an hour, let people give the child some presents from themselves. Remember that your dps mother once had your dp in her arms like you've got your baby, and think how you will feel if a future dil behaves like that with you.

Honestly, once you get used to compromising with the inlaws (compromise I said, not rolling over and letting them walk all over you) life is much easier and your dp will probably feel a lot better for it as well.

poetmum that was a joke right?

I think the OP is a bit odd to want all the presents labeled from Santa. On the other hand I really hate this 'what will the other kids at school say'

sod that. I got sweet FA for christmas most years because my parents were very poor. If I went through my life believing it would be detrimental to me and that kids in school would tease me then I would be very sad in deed.

carry on.

I want this thread in Mumsnet classics. Also I want the OP back ...

ROFL at poetmum, who is obviously an American Hermione -

American because of the countless americanisms in the post (i) Al-Anon Teen. (ii) her DH "works his tail off" (iii) "labour unions" (iv) "an educational account" etc etc

Hermione because of the overriding concern for the elves "C'mon, they are slave labourers who by virtue of their parentage are relegated to a specific social caste. It is an unchanging system from which they will never escape. There are no labour unions in make-believe-land."

But best of all is Moondog's response "you sound ... in need of a quick going over in an alley."

Ho ho ho

Oh I thought poetmum was just taking the piss...

For her DS's sake you would hope that she was BalloonSlayer! Sadly I think she meant it.